(This history was written by Margaret in
1910 in her own handwriting and her own language. She had only
six weeks schooling in her life. At the age of 85 years she had
the privilege of riding in an airplane which she greatly enjoyed.
She had a wonderful mind and was very progressive and had a great
desire to not be a burden upon anyone and remained very active
until the last year and a half of her life. She never recovered
from an automobile accident.)

My father's and mother's names were John
and Margaret Griffiths. They were baptized into the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, January 30, 1840 by Elder John
Taylor, when he was on his first mission in England.

My father lived in Liverpool, England,
then, and in 1840 I was born on April 15th. When I was six weeks
old we went up to London to live, as her majesty the Queen,
wanted more men to work in the Woolwich Dock Yards, so my father
was one that was called on. The foreman he worked for went too,
and my father worked for the same foreman twenty-seven years.
Mother was baptized the same day father was. Heber C. Kimball
sent word to my father for him and his family to go to Salt Lake
City, Utah. That was in March 1856, so we got ready and left
Liverpool the 28th of May, 1856, on the ship called Horizon. We
were five weeks on the sea. For two weeks I was dreadfully
seasick. The name of the captain was Mr. Reed and when we
anchored in Boston Harbor in U.S.A. we held a meeting and thecaptain
got up and spoke. He said, "The song says, I'll marry
none but Mormons' but I'll say, I'll carry none but Mormons, for
they are the best people I ever crossed the sea with." I
believe there were nine hundred and fifty Mormons on that ship.

In 1840 when my father went to London, we
went to what was called the Latter-Day Saints Depot. There were
only four Mormon elders there at that time, and they laid their
hands on him and ordained him an Elder and sent him preaching. He
would work all day from six in the morning until six at night,
and then he would eat his supper and then go preach at night.
Some times it would be eleven and twelve o'clock before he would
get home, as he had to walk, for there were no conveyances to be
got, and there were no railroad in Woolwich at that time. Father
raised up Woolwich Branch, Welling, Elton, Greenwich and Deptford
and lots of other places. The first men to join the Church in
Woolwich was Aaron Painter and Mr. Bates, Thomas Fisher, and
William Blackmore. My father was a boilermaker by trade and so
was Mr. Bates. One day when Mr. Bates was at work a large piece
of iron fell on him and they took him to the hospital and he died
in a short while after being taking to the hospital. The last
words he said, he was calling my father. The people all thought
that it was my father that was dead. My father and mother who
were with the mourners could hear the people say, "Now
Griffiths is dead, down with Mormonism!" And they were
greatly surprised when they heard that he had been preaching on
the next Sunday. They thought it was my father that was dead. He
got along quite nicely after that and raised quite a nice branch.
He would go and preach Sundays as well as nights. Well, he was a
faithful elder in the Church of Jesus Christ of L.D.S.

In 1853 the war broke out in Seabastipool
and they were pressing young men into the service so my father
and mother sent my brother Thomas to Utah. That broke up
mothers heart and she died in six months after. She was
forty-three years old then.

My brother sailed on the ship called the
International. He arrived in Salt lake the same year and he lived
with Lorenzo Snow, who had him sent with the Church herd to
Carson Valley and he never came back. The last I heard from him
he was in Sacramento California, very sick. I wrote to him but
never got any answer. It was in 1855 that he went to Carson and
it was in 1858 before I heard from him and that was by a young
man that came in the house to see my husband and he got to
talking about traveling. He said he was a great traveler. He had
been all over the world nearly and the last place he went was
with the Church herd to Carson Valley in 1855. My husband asked
him if knew a young man by the name of Thomas Griffiths and he
said "Yes, he traveled with me all the way to
Sacramento." So that is how I heard he was there, I wrote to
him but never have heard any more about him, excepting the one
letter which I received in the year, 1858. Well, I must go back
to England.

I had an uncle and aunt living in London,
England in Stanhope, St. Clarce Marke Lincons in fields, close to
Dury Lane Theatre, opposite Saint Clements Charity Institute.
They had no children and they would come and see us at Woolwich
of a Sunday and then take one of my mother's children back with
them to visit. So it came my turn to go and stay with them, the
last week we were in England. My father and family were to leave
Woolwich on the midnight express and they would arrive at Usten
Square Station, London, and stay there till the train left at
half past six in the morning and I was to be sure and be there by
six o'clock, but I overslept myself and never woke till six and
we had a long way to go. My uncle and aunt went with me and we
walked as fast as we could and got there in time to see the train
pull out of the station. Well, I did not know what to do. To know
that my father, brothers and a sister were on thattrain
and leaving me behind. Oh! it was terrible. I was then 16 years
of age. I was sitting down crying when an Inspector of the
railway station came up to me and wanted to know what was the
matter. My uncle told him and he said for me to stop crying and I
should go on the next train. That would be eight o'clock in the
morning. When the train came I got on and away we started. The
inspector told the porter when he changed cars at Watford to be
sure and tell the other porter that I was to go along all right,
as my father had my ticket with him, but when that porter changed
at Watford he must have forgotten for when I got to the station,
called "Hedgehill" they take the tickets there, and
when the porter asked for mine I told him I had none and he took
hold of my arm and jerked me out in double quick time and then I
told him how it was that I was left behind. They telegraphed up
to London to see if I was telling the truth. The answer they got
was that I was to go on to Liverpool as I was a Mormon that had
been left behind. Liverpool is two hundred and fourteen miles
from London, so I got on the next train that came and that was 10
o'clock at night. I arrived in Liverpool at five minutes past
ten, and then I did not know what to do.

I expected to see my father there waiting
for me, but I was disappointed, There was not a soul there that I
knew. The station is called Lime Street station. Well, I did not
know what to do in a strange place at 10 o'clock at night. I
thought it was something awful, but I went up to an old lady at
an orange stand and asked her if she would be kind enough to tell
me where Earl Street was, out of Great Homer Street. She said
yes, so she told me a great many streets to go before I got to
the one I wanted. I had a hard time to find my aunt that lived
there for I did not know the number of her house, but I kept on
inquiring at every house. At last I went into a small store and
the lady told me I would find my aunt just across the street. So
I ran across the street and peeped in at the window and saw my
father and brothers and sister and then I tell you I was happy.
It was one o'clock in the morning and I was pretty well tired out
as I had not eaten anything all day. It made my father sick, for
he thought he would never see me again, for the ship was to sail
in three days.

He was a pleased man when he saw me, and
then we ate supper and went to bed. In three days we sailed for
America. We landed at Boston, U.S.A. and took the cars [train]
and came on to Florence, Iowa and camped there four weeks till
our handcars were ready for us, then we started to cross the
plains. It was the first day of Sept, and we arrived in Salt Lake
the same year on the last day of November 1856, making it three
months traveling. We were as happy a set of people as ever
crossed the plains, till the snow caught us. We would sit around
the camp fire and sing and were as happy as larks.

Well after the snow caught us we had a
pretty hard time. My father took sick and he had to ride in one
of the wagons, that had provisions. One day he felt a little
better and thought that he would try and walk, but he could not
keep up as he had rheumatism so bad he could not walk, and he
took hold of the rod at the end gate of the wagon to help him
along and when the teamster saw him, he slashed his long whip
around and struck father on the legs and he fell to the ground.
He could not get up again, and that was the last wagon for the
handcarts had gone on before. As I was pulling a handcart I did
not know anything about it till we got into camp, and then I went
back about three miles to him, but could not find him, so I went
back and I was nearly wild. I thought the wolves might have him.

But there was a company called the
Independent Company led by Jesse Have and they were camped in
another direction from us, and my father saw their tracks and
crawled on his knees all the way to their camp. He was so badly
frozen when he got there, they did all they could for him. Two of
the brethren brought him into our camp about eleven o'clock that
night. He was never well after that. My sister Jane and I and two
brothers, named John and Herbert, pulled the handcart till my
brother John died (age 12 year old). That was 50 miles the other
side of Devil's Gate. We camped there two weeks and all we had to
eat was four ounces of flour a day. With having so little to eat
and so cold, for the snow was so deep we could not go any
further, was I think, the reason he died. He froze to death. At
the end of two weeks the horses came running into camp with no
riders and we thought they were Indians' horses, but they went
back again and about two minutes after, they came back with
riders. They were David Kimball and I think the other was Joseph
Young. They told us there would be ten wagons come into camp in
the morning, from Salt Lake, loaded with provisions. That was
good news, but they did not wait until morning but came in that
night. They called a meeting but it was too cold so we went to
bed. In the morning we had a little more flour and then moved
from there to Devils Gate. (Before the provisions arrived, the
company had used up all of their supplies and had rinsed the
flour sacks and drank the water.) and camped there in some log
houses for a week to recruit up a bid and then we left there and
went to Independence Rock on the Sweet Water and camped there
another week. We left our handcarts and came on with the teams
that came from Salt Lake. I think there were about seventy
wagons.

With two and three span of horses and mules
to each wagon, which we were pretty thankful for, all the sick
and frozen rode in the wagons, while those that were well walked
as long as they could, and then they all rode. I buried my
brother Herbert, six years old at Independence Rock, frozen to
death.

My sister Jane lost the first joint of her
big tow and I was terribly frozen up myself, I was laid up nine
weeks in Salt Lake, because my feet had been so badly frozen.
(After I was placed into the wagons and the frost left my feet,
large bags of water formed at my heels.) My father died the next
morning after we got in to Salt Lake. He was frozen to death, He
was 47 years of age.

He died the first day of December, After
that we were pretty well scattered. My sister Jane went with
sister Isabel Thorn to live and I went with a Mrs. Montague.

When I got better I lived out anywhere I
could get a place. Finally I got to a Mr. Henry Cleggs and
lived there a while and then I married him.

Mr. Clegg and I were married in the
Endowment House in Salt Lake City, Utah the 6th day of
Aug. 1857. We lived in Salt Lake until the move south and then I
had many hardships to contend with. I worked very hard, digging
post holes and making posts and setting them, making oak brush
and willow fence, going out washing, whitewashing and taking wool
to spin on share. I also did spinning for Bishop Johnsons
wives, to get mine wove into cloth. We also made soap and candles
on shares, went out gleaning wheat and digging potatoes and
cutting sugar cane.

I would tie a rope around a bundle of sugar
cane and carry it on my back to the molasses mill. I took in
sewing such as pants and coats and vests, also did knitting. Many
a night I have sat up all night knitting by the firelight by
putting on a few chips at a time, as I did not have a stove and
there was no coal oi1 in these days. Nothing but candles or some
grease in a time with a rag in it to burn for light. I would also
pick corn and fruits and dry them and many other things I have
done. I cannot think of them now. Well, that was in Springville,
Utah.

In 1872 we moved up to Wasatch County, and
I worked pretty much the same as I did in Springville until my
sons got large enough to work and they would not let me work as I
had done.

Well, to go back to crossing the plains, I
have seen as many as seventeen sit around a campfire eating
supper and I have seen some of them fall over dead as they were
eating. I think there were six hundred and fifty of us when we
started out to cross the plains, and I believe there were only
three hundred that arrived in Salt Lake City. It was the last
handcart company that came in that year. It was the last day of
November 1856 when we arrived in Salt Lake, Utah.

My father and mother were born in
Carnarvonshire, Bangor, North Wales. I have had eleven living
children -- eight sons and three daughters.

I forgot to say that while we lived in
Springville my husband had a tannery and I helped grind the bark
and worked in the tannery like a man. On the 24th of July 1900 I
was invited to an old folks' party, as I was sixty years old, and
we had a nice time. There was an excursion on the 24th up here
from Provo, Utah and we had a splendid time. There were about 900
people up from Provo.

In 1896 my son Joe took sick with typhoid
fever and then I took it and then my son Levi took it and died.
He was 18 years old and 8 months and was sick only 18 days. We
were all down at once, but burying my son Levi was worse than all
the rest. My daughter Margaret Ann Clegg 8 months died in
Springville in 1862. My son Heber Clegg age one hour died in
Heber City.

My posterity now numbers some 49
grandchildren and 120 great grandchildren and several great great
grandchildren.